Welf. & Inst. Code, § 4518 · Chapter 1.6. General Provisions
Welf. & Inst. Code, § 4518
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Any person may bring an action against an individual who has willfully and knowingly released confidential information or records concerning him or her in violation of the provisions of this chapter, or of Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 11860) of Part 3 of Division 10.5 of the Health and Safety Code, for the greater of the following amounts:
(1) Five hundred dollars ($500).
(2) Three times the amount of actual damages, if any, sustained by the plaintiff.
Any person may, in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 525) of Title 7 of Part 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, bring an action to enjoin the release of confidential information or records in violation of the provisions of this chapter, and may in the same action seek damages as provided in this section.
It is not a prerequisite to an action under this section that the plaintiff suffer or be threatened with actual damages.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by Stats. 1982, Ch. 1141, Sec. 6.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=WIC§ionNum=4518.
- Text hash
- sha256 72e2d50c66c4746dfd184fb3b24db39eae75432d4f93c34ffcbc8b60c6b86049
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- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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